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Science and the making of VictoriaRoyal Society of Victoria
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Inaugural and Anniversary Addresses of the Royal Society

Inaugural Address, delivered by Mr. Justice Barry, President of the Institute, at the Opening Converzazione, 22nd Sept., 1854

Inaugural Address of the President, Captain Clarke, R. E., Surveyor-General, &c., &c.

Anniversary Address of the President, the Honourable Andrew Clarke, Captain R. E., M.P., Surveyor-General of Victoria, &c., &c., &c.

Anniversary Address of the President, His Honor Sir William Foster Stawell, Knight, Chief Justice of Victoria, &c., &c. [Delivered to the Members of the Institute, 12th April, 1858]

Anniversary Address of the President, Ferdinand Mueller, Esq., Ph.D., M.D. F.R.G. and L.S., &c., &c. [Delivered to the Members of the Institute, 28th March, 1859]

Address of the President, Ferdinand Mueller, M.D., Ph.D., F.R.G. & L.S., &c., &c. [Delivered to the Members of the Institute at the Inauguration of the Hall, January 23rd, 1860.]

Inaugural Address of the President, His Excellency Sir Henry Barkly, K.C.B., &c., &c. [Delivered to the Members of the Royal Society, at the Anniversary Meeting held on the 10th April, 1860.]

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Address of the President, Ferdinand Mueller, M.D., Ph.D., F.R.G. & L.S., &c., &c.
[Delivered to the Members of the Institute at the Inauguration of the Hall, January 23rd, 1860.] (continued)


Then the electric wire shall have established our contact with all nations, and shall uphold the cordial affections of scattered friends and families. And then, we trust, the elements of life poured forth by numerous artesian fountains shall irrigate the desert, whilst a vegeiation nutritios and luxuriant, disseminated far and wide, shall have attracted countless flocks and herds. An almost endless network on the chart shall have interlaced the tracks of those who shared in the work of adding to the world's dominions; then the wrecked mariner shall find a coast on which no more the fury of the savage reigns, and monumental cairns will signify then to the wanderer the spots where the never-returnig pioneers of civilisation fell the victims of their heroisin.

An improved system of agriculture shall afford bread to millions then, where now only thousands exist; forests of varied useful trees shall have been transplanted to our shores; the introduction from Flora's and from Fauna's treasures, commenced in our days, supported by our anxious exertions on this spot, may then enliven a much more varied industry; the trout and salmon shall traverse our streams, and game in manifold variety shall roam through the forest, in which the feathered tribes of many zones shall, in their melodies, have added to its primeval charms.

Then the steam-engine shall penetrate far through the continent, and from the point at which its whirling velocity must cease, the ship of the desert shall in safety accomplish the remaining distances from shore to shore, whilst those floating towns, called forth by the enlarged conception of a Brunel, shall bend their staedy course across the ocean.

But not alone in promoting the material welfare of our adopted country shall this Institute have borne its honorable share. A higher ideal of man's destination in the world shall then have shown its influence. Man elevated more and more by science shall have abandoned that egotism by which he but too often retrogrades. No longer shall be lost that skill and that amount of physical and mental energy whcih now are wasted in the field of war. It shall, we trust, have found a higher task in realising grand national projects, dictated by the requirements of a coming time—fulfilling what, perhaps, in past ages, engaged the contemplation of the ancients.


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